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The Memorial Cup host team stuck a guy who hadn’t played in 44 days in there against the London Knights — and won.

Tiny overager Gabriel Girard, who hadn’t played since April 6, beat Michael Houser, the goalie who could end up the Canadian Hockey League’s top netminder — and possibly player of the year — 6-2 before 4,674 Sunday night at Centre Bionest.

This is a compelling Cup now.

Every team has a win so far but the defending champion Saint John Sea Dogs.

Shawinigan and world junior defenceman Brandon Gormley, previously coached in Moncton by former London assistant Danny Flynn, scored twice and managed to slip pucks through the Knights’ surprisingly leaky wall of shot blockers.

The host Cataractes, who switched to Girard after 17-year-old Alex Dubeau allowed four goals in a loss to Edmonton on Friday, were much more opportunistic in the offensive zone against the Knights than they were in their opener.

Down a goal early in the third, London forward Jared Knight ripped a shot off the crossbar behind Girard, and Shawinigan’s Pierre-Oiliver roared back the other way and beat Houser for a vital insurance goal.

The OHL champion Knights are having an awful time keeping the puck out of their net while they’re on the power play.

Hard-working veteran forward Loik Poudrier put the Cataractes up two goals in the second period with a fine shorthanded individual effort. The Knights have given up more goals with the man advantage so far (three) than they’ve scored (two).

But Shawinigan has its own hang-ups, too.

They’ve been extremely poor the shift after scoring. They gave up the winning goal Friday against Edmonton 23 seconds after tying the game.

This time, speedy Knight Andreas Athanasiou shoved home a power-play goal 22 seconds after Poudrier to tighten it up again.

London opened the scoring in the first when Josh Anderson tipped in a Tommy Hughes point shot Shawinigan fans felt started with an offside. The play was reviewed for a high stick, but the goal was upheld.

On that one, long-time Quebec hockey fans got to see another member of a familiar goal-scoring family tree — Anderson, a Burlington, Ont., native, is related to two former Montreal Canadiens greats — Frank and Pete Mahovlich.

Later, the Knights found themselves in penalty trouble after Brett Cook and defence partner Kevin Raine were called for infractions on the same sequence.

Facing a fullsome two-man disadvantage, veterans Austin Watson, Scott Harrington and captain Jarred Tinordi stayed on the ice and killed the entire thing – but ended up with a minus-one beside their stat sheet when Canadian world junior forward Michael Bournival re-directed a Brandon Gormley point shot past Houser after Cook and Raine were home free.

It was the first even-strength goal the Knights surrendered in the tournament. They gave up two shorthanded tallies and a power-play marker in their win over Saint John.

Shawinigan took the lead in the first minute of the second.

Gormley, again, got a puck through the wall of London shot blockers and it was touched by Knights defenceman Olli Maatta enough to fool his own goalie.

Each game, Houser has fell victim to teammates trying to help him out. A wonky Jonathan Huberdeau slapper on Saturday bounced in off Vladislav Namestnikov’s pants.

Earlier in the day, Huberdeau was absolved of further discipline for his dangerous elbow to the back of Matt Rupert’s head. Saint John head coach Gerard Gallant was fined $500 for unprofessional post-game comments about the officiating in the Quebec league after the London loss.